Valkoisen hämärän maa? Suojeluskuntalaiset, virkavalta ja kansa 1918-1921 by Marko Tikka (review)

Abstract

360 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 Reich Ministryfor the Occupied EasternTerritories,was eclipsed as a policy maker on racial issues (he was representedat Wannsee by Alfred Mayer). In short, Nazism was not driven primarilyor even secondarilyby the will to implement emigres' fantasies of destroying the Russian Revolution and eradicatingJewish Bolshevism. These goals had multiple origins and were only one aspect of an overridinggoal of national rebirth,cultural,racial and imperial,that assumeddifferentpermutationsin every sphere of society. Even within the Nazi hierarchy there were major differencesof policy within the broad consensus on the need for Germany to be reborn and its Volkskdrper to be purged, a vision rooted in the quest for a new modernity to resolve the pluraldysfunctionsof Weimar Germany and not in the persuasivenessof any one pressuregroup. Nazism was a hydra, whose different heads incarnated fantasies of rural regeneration,of blood and soil, of the awakeningof occult Aryan energies, of the emergence of a 'New Religion' of German Christianity,of technocratic mastery of Eastern Europe, of a healthy mass society fully coordinated in work and leisurewith the immortalityof the Volk, of the eugenic creation of a masterrace, of culturalrenaissance,of an urban civilizationemulatingRome but celebratingNordic supremacynot Romanita. Though Kellogg distances himself from Ernst Nolte's perverse portrait of the Second World War as a 'EuropeanCivil War' his exclusivefocus on the Aufbauand overestimationof its impact comes close to duplicatingNolte's distortedperspective.Fortunately Kellogg cannot be of apologetic, revisionist intentions, and his scholarship has bequeathed considerable data about a neglected aspect of Nazism's convoluted history, even if its neglect is not as unwarranted as he likes to think. School ofArtsandHumanities ROGER GRIFFIN Oxford Brookes University Tikka, Marko. Valkoisen hamdrdn maa? Suojeluskuntalaiset, virkavalta ja kansa I9I8-I92I. Historiallisia Tutkimuksia, 230. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuudlen Seura, Helsinki, 2006. 260 pp. Illustrations.Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. E32.oo. THEperiod I9I8-21 in Finland, which is considered in Marko Tikka'sbook, was a time of instability. The Whites, who had won the Civil War of early I9I8, feared a new Red insurrection,and there was a strong sense of alienation from the state on the part of the defeated working class. Political intrigue and lawlessnessflourished in a country awash with firearmsduring the years when a new constitution and democratic government were established and an effective police force and army were formed. Tikka considers the relationship between the Civil Guards, the authorities and the people during these troubled formativeyears of post-revolutionaryFinland. Originallyset up to maintainorderin the chaos which followedthe Russian Revolution and Finland's declaration of independence, the Civil Guards became government troops during the Finnish Civil War and played a key REVIEWS 36I role in the victory of the Whites. Tikka reasonably places them among the various defence forces which emerged in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Estonia in the uncertainyears afterWorld War I. The Civil Guards, as an armed force, were called upon to help the civilian authoritiesin a number of ways from mid I9I8 onwards.Tikka found that in I9l9-20 they assistedthe police on 2344 occasions. They helped in tracking down and arrestingReds who had either avoided surrenderor escaped from detention camps. They also helped to conduct surveillanceof working class leaders, trade unions and other workers' associations, including their social activities. Such surveillance was pervasive, sometimes heavy-handed, and stronglyresented. The pursuit of fugitives and surveillanceare characterized by the author as politically-relatedactivitiesbut other assistanceto the police was non political. Prohibition had been introduced in Finland in I919 and during its early years the Civil Guards became much involved in the destruction of illicit stills, a process which strengthened their ties with the police. Along the Soviet Russian frontier, where there was an immense amount of smuggling,the Civil Guardshelped the armyto patrolthe borders, often resultingin conflictswith local people who were engaged in the 'trade', includingat times some of theirown members.The Civil Guardswere used to captureand returnconscriptswho had desertedfrom the army.Unfavourable press coverage of their activities attracted the attention of the Civil Guards headquarters,which demanded explanationsof incidents involvingmembers. This kind of investigationwas unpopularwith members of the Civil Guards although they directed their resentmentagainst those who complained about them ratherthan againsttheir own commanders.A number of memberswere expelled for disciplinaryoffences, involving...